March 7 (Reuters) - More than 420,000 homes and businesses remained without power in North Carolina and South Carolina on Friday evening due to a winter ice storm with high winds that brought down trees and power lines.

Duke Energy Corp, the biggest utility in the United States, said it had more than 355,000 customers without power in the Carolinas, down from 387,000 earlier in the day.

Duke said power will be restored to some customers in western North Carolina late Friday, but workers were still working to assess damage in the hardest-hit areas around Raleigh and Greensboro and had no restoration schedule.

North Carolina electric cooperatives said outages grew to 62,600 during the day, and Dominion Resources Inc said 3,000 customers lacked power in Virginia and North Carolina.